How to really engage your community

On the second day of our study we were invited to Stanford University where we met experienced social media managers of three different units. They openly shared their strategies, provided us with insights and gave us good advice. This is what we take home from Stanford: Continue Reading →

A survey by the US marketing agency Verge Pipe Media asked 25,000 students, parents-of-students, and alumni at a US University “is social media important to you?” and “how would you like the University to communicate with you?”. The results are compiled in a infographic. Continue Reading →

By Reto Caluori, Head of Communications at the University of Basel (@retocaluori).

A to Z through Day #2

A as in Alumni: Having focused on graduation for a long time to establish a relationship with students, Stanford Alumni now shifts their efforts to freshmen, juniors and seniors. A team of tree full-time staff members takes care of student relations.

B as in “Biggest Threat”: Immigration policy constrictions would put an end to Silicon Valley, says Chuck Darrah. To a great extent, the Valley “is built on CHIPs” (i.e. Chinese and Indian professionals).

The folks at Marketing Cloud (Radian6) put together a pretty useful webinar, in which the social media teams at Full Sail University in Orlando, Florida and Brock University in Canada shared their best practices and how they are using Radian6 to reach their objectives.

Key takeaways include:

LinkedIn is the best tool for alumni scouting and research.

Be aware of best practices outside of your industry. For example, retailers are usually early adopters and innovators and thus good to keep an eye on.

Respond and communicate also during non-business hours.

Tailor content to each channel and audience. It’s fine to use the same content, but customize the appearance.

Be human, which means: don’t auto-post, establish a voice/tone and stick to it, try to engage in the conversations about you, and don’t be afraid to use humor.

Connecting with current students and making them aware of the benefits of connecting with alumni is crucial while you can still reach them. I found this video by Brigham Young Idaho University extolling the benefits of connecting with fellow university alumni.

University of Geneva on iTunes U. The university of Geneva is joining a handful of other Swiss academic institutions on iTunes U and has already uploaded a number of podcasts . Congratulations!

Seven deadly sins of Facebook brand pages. Are you using the right picture format? Have you set up a vanity URL? And are you already using the Facebook timeline to mark important milestones in your university’s history?

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“The Digital Campus” is an initiative by swissnex San Francisco that is open to all Swiss higher education institutions.

The objective of this program is to continue to build upon the growing social media expertise of program participants and provide Swiss higher education with the latest knowledge and best practices on how to leverage new technologies for the benefits of their institutions and students.
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